About
Zones in the OpenSolaris 2009.06 Release

Zones on the OpenSolaris release are a work
in progress; they are evolving as development continues. The software management
aspect of zones is changing because OpenSolaris uses IPS instead of SVr4 packaging
and patching. Thus, work in still being done where zones are impacted by software
management, such as installation and migration.

The Image Packaging System (IPS) is a new model for software management
in the OpenSolaris 2009.06 Release, and zones are changing to utilize this
model. The following differences should be noted:

The ipkg brand is the default instead of
the native brand, which is the default on SX systems.

ipkg branded zones are whole-root type
only; inherit-pkg-dir should not be used.

The
sparse root type of zone describes a fundamental interaction between zones
and the package management system, and IPS doesn't support this concept. Sun
is working on providing the positive attributes of sparse root zones in other
ways.

Zones have different software management related functionality
in these areas:

IPS versus SVR4 packaging

Install, detach/attach, "physical to virtual" (P2V) capability

Zones have different global
zone software operations; they employ manual syncing, not patching. Currently,
the zones don't automatically update when you pkg image-update the
system. You must manually update the zones after rebooting to keep them in
sync with the global zone. In a future release, this update should happen
automatically.

Note –

Until pkg_image-update is fully supported,
you can use zoneadmdetach and attach-u as a workaround. Detach the zone before running pkg_image-update, then use attach-u after
running pkg_image-update. See About Migrating a Zone for more information on these commands.

Global zones are integrated with beadm and
use boot environments as described in beadm Zones Support. In a future release, support
for beadm inside zones is planned.

The zone root is a ZFSTM dataset. In
a future release, this feature will enable support for beadm inside
zones for pkg_image-update, just as you can do in the global
zone. To accomplish this, the zone's root dataset must be controlled inside
the zone.